Skip to content
Fitness News You Can Trust — Stay Fit, Stay Healthy

Rapid Strides and Less Idling for Pedestrians Observed in New Study

Research reveals a speedier pace in urban environments: People now walk approximately 15% faster in cities than they did in 1980, and they spend less time idling in public spaces.

,   and  Administrator
3 min read
Increased speed and decreased loitering among pedestrians, as per researchers' findings
Increased speed and decreased loitering among pedestrians, as per researchers' findings

Rapid Strides and Less Idling for Pedestrians Observed in New Study

In a groundbreaking study, researchers have analyzed street-level video footage of public spaces in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia from the early 1980s and compared it with footage from around 2010. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers insights into how urban environments have changed over the decades.

The research, co-authored by MIT scholars and others, used artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to track pedestrian behaviour across these decades. The findings reveal a significant increase in the average walking speed of pedestrians, by about 15 percent, from 1980 to 2010. Simultaneously, the number of people lingering in public spaces decreased by around 14 to 50 percent.

The study replicates observational work by renowned urbanist William Whyte, whose famous 1956 book, "The Organization Man," became a touchstone of its decade. The researchers used machine-learning tools to assess video footage captured by Whyte from 1978 through 1980 and archived by the Project for Public Spaces.

Key locations such as Boston’s Downtown Crossing, New York’s Bryant Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art steps, and Chestnut Street in Philadelphia were the focus of the study. The results could help inform urban planning, as designers seek to create new public areas or modify existing ones.

The shift towards faster walking speeds and less time spent socializing in public spaces could be due to the pervasive use of cellphones and the availability of indoor venues like coffee shops. The percentage of individuals entering public spaces who became part of a group declined from 5.5% in 1980 to 2% in 2010.

MIT professor Carlo Ratti, a co-author of the study, notes that this reflects a broader transformation in urban public spaces—they work more as corridors, prioritizing movement over social exchange. Fewer group encounters were observed, and the overall atmosphere of these spaces has become less like traditional "town squares" and more like "conveyor belts."

The researchers are turning their attention to an extensive survey of European public spaces to learn at a larger scale. The team from MIT's Senseable City Lab is collecting footage from 40 squares in Europe, with the aim of shedding more light on the interaction between people and the public forum. This work will undoubtedly contribute to our understanding of how urban spaces evolve and how we can design them to better serve our needs.

[1] Ratti, C., Salazar-Miranda, A., Fan, Z., Baick, M., Hampton, K. N., Duarte, F., ... & Glaeser, E. (2022). Urban space evolution: a 40-year study of pedestrian behaviour in three cities using machine learning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[2] MIT News. (2022). Study reveals how public spaces have changed over 40 years. https://news.mit.edu/2022/study-reveals-how-public-spaces-have-changed-over-40-years-0221

[3] Science Daily. (2022). Study reveals how public spaces have changed over the past 40 years. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220222161313.htm

[4] The Atlantic. (2022). The Death of the Town Square. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/02/public-space-urban-planning-cities-ai/620977/

  1. The research paper, titled "Urban space evolution: a 40-year study of pedestrian behavior in three cities using machine learning," was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers including MIT professor Carlo Ratti.
  2. The study, co-authored by scholars from MIT and others, analyzed street-level video footage from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia from the 1980s and compared it with footage from around 2010 to understand how urban environments have changed over the decades.
  3. The researchers used machine learning techniques powered by artificial intelligence to track pedestrian behavior across these decades and discovered a significant increase in average walking speed, with a 15 percent rise from 1980 to 2010.
  4. The number of people lingering in public spaces decreased by around 14 to 50 percent, and the percentage of individuals entering public spaces who became part of a group declined from 5.5 percent in 1980 to 2 percent in 2010.
  5. The findings of the study could help inform urban planning, encouraging designers to create public spaces that cater to both movement and social exchange, rather than focusing primarily on efficient pedestrian flow.
  6. The researchers aim to expand their study with a survey of European public spaces, gathering footage from 40 squares to better understand the interaction between people and the public forum in a larger cultural context, with the aim of contributing to our understanding of how urban spaces evolve and how we can design them to better serve our needs in health-and-wellness, fitness-and-exercise, technology, art, and science.

Read also:

    Related

    Latest